THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.

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among the sixty-four last years of the last century, will alonevery nearly account for that small enhancement of price whichseems to have taken place in them. These, however, thoughthe highest, are by no means the only high prices which seemto have been occasioned by the civil wars.

The second event was the bounty upon the exportation ofcorn, granted in 1688. The bounty, it has been thought bymany people, by encouraging tillage, may, in a long courseof years, have occasioned a greater abundance, and conse-quently a greater cheapness of corn in the home-market, thanwhat would otherwise have taken place there. How far thebounty could produce this effect at any time, I shall examinehereafter; I shall only observe at present, that between 1688and 1700, it had not time to produce any such effect. Dur-ing this short period its only effect must have been, by encou-raging the exportation of the surplus produce of every year,and thereby hindering the abundance of one year from com-pensating the scarcity of another, to raise the price in thehome-market. The scarcity which prevailed in England from1693 to 1699, both inclusive, though no doubt principallyowing to the badness of the seasons, and therefore, extendingthrough a considerable part of Europe , must have been some-what enhanced by the bounty. In 1699, accordingly, thefurther exportation of corn was prohibited for nine months.

There was a third event which occurred in the course ofthe same period, and which, though it could not occasion anyscarcity of corn, nor perhaps, any augmentation in the realquantity of silver which was usually paid for it, must neces-sarily have occasioned some augmentation in the nominalsum. This event was the great debasement of the silver coin,by clipping and wearing. This evil had begun in the reignof Charles II. and had gone on continually increasing till1695: at which time, as we may learn from Mr. Lowndes,the current silver coin was, at an average, near five-and-twentyper cent, below its standard value. But the nominal sumwhich constitutes the market price of every commodity isnecessarily regulated, not so much by the quantity of silver,which, according to the standard, ought to be contained init, as by that which, it is found by experience, actually is con-tained in it. This nominal sum, therefore, is necessarilyhigher when the coin is much debased by clipping and wear-ing, than when near to its standard value.

In the course of the present century, the silver coin has not